C

D

F

Summary: "When Spike and the ponies are transported into the city of Maretropolis in his favorite comic book, Spike is disappointed when he becomes a boring sidekick instead of one of his favorite heroes. But when the ponies come up against pony super villain, The Mane-iac, Spike becomes the last line of defense to help save the day."

I won't get to see this one until next weekend because of holiday travelling and spotty internet, which is a bit of a shame - I have enjoyed livestreaming even more this season because I've been able to put it on my big TV instead of just watching it on my computer.

There's a new clip out from Entertainment Weekly that shows they're back

in the Castle of the Two Sisters

, so we're probably getting more arc stuff. Is

the Mane-iac actually the Pony of Shadows? We shall see!

There's also a meta-as-fuck character joke in the clip, so this could be really fun.

Click to expand...

So it looks like they're fixing up the castle. Well Twi' is a princess now, I guess she does need a castle. Still thinking they're setting up some larger story having to do with the place.

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It's pretty clear they've got something up their sleeve with the Castle/Everfree/Pony of Shadows/Mystery Box. Given that we know the Everfree was supposed to play a major role in Lauren's original plans for the show, and they retained her idea about flightless Scootaloo, I'm sure they're doing all they can to keep her ideas front-and-center. Count on the Everfree to be important.

The writers will next have to delve into what it is, exactly, if they want Twi to live there. I've got my bet on "Bats!" as the next arc-episode.

There's a new clip out from Entertainment Weekly that shows they're back

in the Castle of the Two Sisters

, so we're probably getting more arc stuff. Is

the Mane-iac actually the Pony of Shadows? We shall see!

There's also a meta-as-fuck character joke in the clip, so this could be really fun.

Click to expand...

So it looks like they're fixing up the castle. Well Twi' is a princess now, I guess she does need a castle. Still thinking they're setting up some larger story having to do with the place.

Click to expand...

It's pretty clear they've got something up their sleeve with the Castle/Everfree/Pony of Shadows/Mystery Box. Given that we know the Everfree was supposed to play a major role in Lauren's original plans for the show, and they retained her idea about flightless Scootaloo, I'm sure they're doing all they can to keep her ideas front-and-center. Count on the Everfree to be important.

The writers will next have to delve into what it is, exactly, if they want Twi to live there. I've got my bet on "Bats!" as the next arc-episode.

Click to expand...

Might be a bit off base, but I'm thinking the Pony Of Shadows will end up being

Nightmare Moon, or rather the entity that caused Luna to give in to her jealousy and become Nightmare Moon.

I just hope it isn't Trixie. I'd really hate to see her backslide into being a "villain".

Solid A for humour and story, a nice tribute to all the cheesey 60's hero shows and comics, a lot of classic Batman shout outs and Marvel satire.

Technically the only stand alone of the season not tied into any previous storyline, it did really well by itself and the villain had a great character design and really reminded me of all the old Batman villains of the weak, down to the lame puns and legions of henchmen.

Pinkie was so much better this week, and Rarity got a lot of good moments to herself, there was a lot of focus on Spike which normally I don't like, but luckily even that was well done.

Fluttershy losing it was awesome, the setup for it was predictable given her vocation but still, she was adorable and hilarious all episode.

So they are making the castle fit for habitation. But with all the structural damage I'm not sure it can be, even if they do fix it with magic it will be the end of the season before it's ready, probably tying into the finale.

The ending, and the reveal of where the comic came from, was poor, and could have been worked in so many other ways, the Pony of Shadows or even just Discord. Having there be some magic comic shop in Canterlot selling illicit enchanted comics is a copout and raises serious questions about items like the Amulet and comics being sold.

I'm glad they finally made explicit what we've known for a while, that the show tends to treat Spike as the idiot sidekick. Alas, I don't expect any long-term growth from this but at least we got an episode that addressed it.

I lost it at the almost-Powerpuff Girls reference at the end. "And once more, the day is saved by....THE POW- *gets sucked back into the real world*"

The ending, and the reveal of where the comic came from, was poor, and could have been worked in so many other ways, the Pony of Shadows or even just Discord. Having there be some magic comic shop in Canterlot selling illicit enchanted comics is a copout and raises serious questions about items like the Amulet and comics being sold.

Click to expand...

Agreed. The clumsy handling of the comic keeps this from an "A" for me; it raises too many problems about the rules of magic and commerce in the pony universe all for the sake of a single throwaway episode. The approach they took also weakens the story in a way; like Equestria Girls, the explanation for what's happening seems so outrageous compared with everything else we know about FiM that it sort of feels like the whole episode takes place in a pocket continuity isolated from the rest of the series. Shame.

Personally, I'd been holding out for some kind of Inception-style "shared dream" scenario orchestrated by Luna to teach them not to take Spike for granted; when it was revealed in the previews that the ponies were hanging out in the sisters' old castle, it'd seemed possible.

Fun episode. And they didn't for the obvious joke with Flutter-Hulk; I was expecting "My secret is I'm always angry" or some variant. And really, Spike, dude, you live with magic ponies; anything with the adjective "enchanted" isn't just going to be what it appears to be.

That was awesome. I loved the crazyness of it all, especially the villain and her weapons and doomsday devices (the hairspray ray of doom ) and of course Flutterhulk.

Also, Rarity got an opportunity to shine with all that stuff she created while still being very much her. "I do so love functional accessories" indeed.

Oh, and I don't think enchanted comics are too much of a stretch in the ponyverse. It figures that someone would use magic for (not so harmless) pranks. We don't know how serious the situation really would have been had the ponies failed to stop the Mane-iac. I imagined it to be more like a videogame.